Friday, July 14, 2006

 

'Tis the Season for Reform

It's reform time in California. The people in favor of public (rather than private) financing of election campaigns are involved in a debate about what to call their movement. The present term is "Clean Money." The Los Angeles City Council is in favor of the concept but wants to call it "Full Public Financing" of campaigns. Whatever the name, the movement is gathering steam and probably will be enacted soon, either by the State Legislature or by an Initiative. California will then join Arizona and Maine in having a method of campaign funding that is intended to divorce the power of money from public policy decisions.

Another reform that seems to be taking shape involves a deal between our Republican Governor (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and our Legislature (Democratic majorities in each chamger). The legislators want a relaxing of the severe term limit restrictions. The governor wants a non-partisan commission to do the job of rearranging boundaries of election districts. At present the legislature does the redistricting, as is the case in most States. The deal that I read about this morning in the Los Angeles Times involved changing the preseent term limits of six years in the Assembly and eight years in the Senate to a total of twelve years combined service in both chambers. At present the six years in the Assembly and eight in the Senate provides a total of fourteen years of combined service. It doesn't look like a good deal to me.

However, I have a prejudice. I think that term limits for elected officials, particularly legislators, is bad policy. I can think of several persons who served in the California legislature for many years before the era of term limits. Some of these were persons of great wisdom who helped other members accomplish their goals by arranging compromises and deals. The late Frank Lanterman was one who comes to mind. I have a good memory of him, even though he was a Republican.
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